Do You Need A Lobby For Your Hobbies?

05.22.2008

This is a summary of conversations I've had with Jerry over the past year. Or three.

When is a hobby not a hobby? How often have you had a hobby slip to the wayside, yet still consider it a hobby? Do you have to go to a hobby store for something to be considered a hobby? Well I'm here to tell you the Russellmania Rules of Hobbydom that will let you know when your hobby really is a hobby.

For example purposes, I will use my collecting of original comic book art as a test to see if it is a hobby.

Criteria #1 - The majority of people can't do it. Watching TV isn't a hobby. Reading isn't a hobby (in general, there are exceptions). The "majority of people" are considered people within your peer group, not the world population. In my example, I am the only person I know that collects comic art, thus it meets the first criteria.

While "reading" isn't considered a hobby, specialized reading may be. If you only read mysteries or sci-fi, then that could count, too.

Criteria #2 - you have to spend money on it. Mowing the grass isn't a hobby if all your friends live in apartments. These are chores. According to eBay, that comic art is costing me money.

Criteria #3 - you have to actively pursue it for more than a month. Ah, the minimum time requirement. I went out once and bought a lot of miniature gaming pieces for a game that looked interesting. Over the course of a week I spent $100 and got the rules and everything I needed to play it. Then it all sat on a shelf. Instead of a hobby, I had an impulse purchase. The comic art example covered at least 5 years, so the hobby definition is still good!

Criteria #4 - you have to spend money on a regular basis. The regular basis part can be a bit fuzzy. General there will be some type of monthly payment involved (cable bills don't count!). At the very least money should be spent annually. I haven't bought any comic art in over a year, so here I would say that my example no longer qualifies as a hobby, but for 3 years I was actively seeking out and purchasing art work, so at that time it was a hobby.

But what if it's not a hobby? In my example, my hobby has slipped to a pastime. Pastimes are hobbies that are infrequent and/or cost little money. Once you slip to no regular activity and spending no money, it becomes a fond remembrance. But that's a story for another post.

Taking this into account for Jerry:

• R/C planes are a hobby.
• HAM radios are a pastime.
• Raising kids are a chore.

For myself:

• Hobbies: collecting DVDs, comic books, wrestling figures
• Pastimes: collecting comic book art, playing WoW (time spent on that one so far)
• Fond Remembrances: R/C cars, GI Joes
• Chores: not as many as I need to be doing.

There's all kind of loopholes, but this is a work in progress. Hmmm, I bet "work" needs to be in there too. I bet that's where web pages fit! Sometimes.

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SWM Looking For: More Hours In A Day

05.12.2008

The following is a "Mom, I'm Alive" post.

Busy busy busy.  That's me.  Here's what all I'm trying to do:

• Work a 40+ hour week at Spiritus, home of the most understanding boss ever
• Work a 20 hour week at Westar
• Help take care of Gina, now recovering from woman surgery at the hospital.
• Finish working the examples in the Ajax book I'm reading.
• Go to the web developers group lunch Tuesday and learn some MySql tricks.
• Play some more World of Warcraft - I'm liking that game.
• Call Microsoft to get a box to ship off the dead 360

At least I finally went and saw Dad this past weekend for the first time since Thanksgiving. I always seem to go see him around Mothers Day. I'm backward like that.

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Remote Update

05.02.2008

Since returning from the beach with my new (refurbished) Blu-Ray player, I've been hesitant to hook it up, mainly because it meant I would have to unhook one of my other HDMI linked components.  Either the Xbox Three hundred and Sixty or the Betamax-like HD-DVD player.  Not being one to unhook things, I found myself on the eBay and purchased an HDMI switcher.

Last night I started hooking all the components together, and along the way decided that there really were components I didn't need any longer.  VHS recorder: Not sure I ever used the one hooked up now.  GONE! 5-disc cd carousel: I haven't played a real cd anywhere but the car for at least a year. GONE!  Big honking receiver/amp hooked up to the cd player.  GONE!

Once all of my components that survived were re-hooked up, it was time for me to update my remote.  The reason I got the Harmony 880 remote was that the drivers (I guess commoners would call them instructions?) are downloaded form the interweb, so in my mind it will always be up-to-date and you shouldn't have to hope some generic numbered code will work for what you need.  I plugged the remote in to the PC, connected to Mr Logitech, and told them I now had a Blu-Ray player and Psyclone HDMI switcher.  Wham bam download you ma'am and I'm good to go.



I love it when technology uses its powers for good.

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Spiritus Bound... Again

04.23.2008

Dec 6, 2006: My last official day as an employee of Spiritus, Inc, due to funding cuts on the contract under which I was working.  The Boss' words to me as I was processed out were "I'm going to get you back, just give me some time."

Apr 22, 2008: I turn in my notice at Westar to let them know I'm going back to work at Spiritus.

Spiritus, and the group of people which constitute the company, was one of those places I like to be.  I liked working there, I liked the people, I liked the atmosphere.  My job at Westar as been a good job - atmosphere, people, the actual job.  But Jim has been the one boss I've had that I've wanted to be loyal to.  He was always upfront with me and I respected that.  When he told me back in 2006 that he was going to bring me back, there was part of me that believed him, but another part that said "yeah, sure".  I found out back in November that I was still on the payroll (but not drawing a check, obviously).  Shadiva, in charge of the payroll, would ask Jim if she should take me off, to which he would say "no, you're just going to have to put him back on again later."  That pinged the loyalty thought in my head a little harder once I heard that.

When Jim called me 6 weeks ago and said that my old job might be opening back up if I was interested, I had to think hard about it.  There was no active reason for me to leave my current job.  Like I said, I enjoy my job.  It's not a place I was looking to leave.  But an opportunity was opening up.  And then there was that loyalty thing.  So I made a list of questions (6 in all), and I went and talked to Jim.  If he said "yes" to my 6 questions, going back would be the right thing to do.  At the end of our talk, I had 6 check marks next to "yes", along with 2 more that had popped up during our talk.

After that, the gears of progress ground (grinded?) and I got word that I would indeed be Spiritus bound again.  Thankfully, I think, I'm going to still be working at Westar part-time/at night until they find my replacement or get tired of me.  Or until Jim changes his mind and decides I take up too much room.

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Up The Beach Without a Camera

04.19.2008

For the first time in 2 or 3 years I take a vacation beach trip with Gina, and with all my packing I manage to leave my camera on my desk.  At home.

I'm currently on Day 4 of my 5 day vacation in Destin.  Tomorrow is the 7-ish hour drive back home.  Not a lot to look forward to when you view it that way.

It's been a good vacation.  The weather has been cool, with highs in the mid-70s.  Not exactly beach weather, as the water is still chilly.  I have managed to catch up on some reading - I finished the novel I started a little over a week ago, Shatner's "Collision Course", which turned into a pretty good Trek book which goes against all of the pre-TOS Kirk/Spock storylines (the book has Spock and Kirk meeting when they were both teenagers).  Shatner usually has a co-writer, and this one (wish I could remember which it was) did a nice job.  Most of the Shatner Trek books I've read always revolved around Kirk getting older and trying to ignore it.

Thanks to the local outlet mall in Destin, I've corrected my HD-directed mis-step into the world of High Definition and purchased myself a [refurbished] blu-ray player.  It was in part an impulse buy, but I've had a max price I was willing to pay when browsing eBay and the auctions always went over that amount.  The Sony outlet store had the player right at the price I was willing to part with, so I'm looking at that as a sign.  Now I just hope everything works when I get it home and hooked up, otherwise I'm going to have to take a closer look at the return policy that's printed on the receipt.

The seafood portion of the trip has also been great.  I've tried some different types of fish instead of sticking to shrimp baskets the whole time.  Wednesday night I had some really good crab cakes with a tomato-and-something tartar sauce that was very tasty.  I've gotten used to crab cakes that have been frozen and deep fried (maybe not in that order), so pan-cooked crab cakes have a much different taste and texture.  A much better taste and texture!

Oh, on the food route but off the seafood tract, Gina and I tracked down a Godfather's Pizza in Ft Walton.  Ever since the Godfather's Pizza we had in Gatlinburg, 5 or 6 years ago, topped our list as the best pizza we had ever had, we've been looking for another to try.  I visited a Godfather's outside of Gulf Shores a couple of years back, but it wasn't nearly as good.  This time the pizza was good, but while the Gatlinburg pizza somehow got even better when we had it for breakfast the next morning, this one merely remained adequate the next day.  Alas, Gatlinburg Godfather, ye be missed.

I wonder if there's any cheese still melted to that box?

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